The highly-skilled Glazunov had as his primary weakness that he did not fully synthesize his many influences - Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Wagner, and Brahms - and hence remained a derivative rather than original composer. Here, he is in Rimsky-Korakov territory, reveling in the opportunities for exoticism afforded by Russia's 19th Century expansion into neighboring Turkic and Mongol territories. At the time he wrote this piece, the genre was still fresh, and the result is a sparkling and piece fit to be a companion to the more famous such pieces of the time. The music is in the same exciting vein as that of Rimsky and Borodin.

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